368 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



The Cotswold sheep began to attract attention about 1832, in which 

 year Mr. 0. Dunn imported a ram to cross on the Leicester. Up to 1837 

 they were but little known in the State. In 1840 William H. Sotham 

 imported 19, for which he paid $110 each, and in the same year Erastus 

 Corning and Mr. Sotham imported 25 sheep, a cross of the Cotswold 

 and Bakewell, and said to have been as fine animals of the kind as were 

 ever imported. These were from the flock of Mr. Hewer, Northleach, 

 Gloucestershire, from which another importation of 50 to 70 head was 

 made in the fall of 1840. Justus C. Haviland, of Duchess County, began 

 the breeding of the Cotswold in 1836 and continued it many years. 



The Cotswold sheep are natives of low calcareous hills, running through 

 the eastern side of Gloucestershire, England, in a direction from south- 

 west to northeast. In Gloucestershire these hills are of moderate eleva- 

 tion, not fertile, yet capable of cultivation, and yielding in the natural 

 state a short sweet herbage. It was formerly a range of bleak wastes 

 employed in the pasturage of sheep, and much of it was in the state of 

 common; but with 1 the progress of the last century the commons were 

 appropriated and cultivation was extended. These hills were called 

 the Cotswold, from the practice in early times of protecting the sheep 

 during winter in long ranges of buildings, three or four stories high, 

 with low ceilings, and with a slope at one end of each floor, reaching to 

 the next, and by which the sheep were enabled to ascend to the top- 

 most one. These sheds were called cots or cottes, and with the open 

 hilly ground or woold, on which the sheep fed in summer, gave name 

 both to the sheep and their habitat. 



There is but little doubt that the original Cotswold sheep were, if 

 not the earliest, at any rate one of the earliest breeds of sheep in Eng- 

 land, and that they obtained a position unrivaled for the production of 

 wool. Camden, one of the early English chroniclers, says: 



In these woolds (Cotswold) they feed in great numbers flocks of sheep, long necked 

 and square of bulk and bone, by reason (as is commonly thought) of the weally and 

 hilly situation of their pasturage, whose wool, being most fine and soft, is held in 

 passing great account amongst all nations. 



Other writers refer to the excellence and abundance of the wools of 

 the Cotswold. Drayton, who lived in the time of Henry VIII, contrasts 

 the rich fleeces of Costwold with those of the flocks of Sarum and Leo- 

 minster, and writers since that time have made similar references to 

 the famous wool which for fineness "comes very near to that of Spain, 

 for from it a thread may be drawn as fine as silk." 



The precise character of the sheep which produced this wool is now 

 unknown, as some contend. While Marshall, Youatt, and others con- 

 sider that they have always been a long-wooled breed, many, including 

 Low, incline to the opinion that they were probably similar to the large 

 fine-wooled breeds of the adjoining counties of Berks and Wilts, a sup- 

 position agreeing with the locality of the districts and with "the long 



